Parasitic Disease

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Parasitic Disease

It is estimated by the CDC that over are about 6 to 12 million occurrences of head lice infestation a year, (“Head Lice”, 2020). Head lice is more common among 3 to 11 year old school children than any other age group or population. Head lice spread by direct contact with the hair of an infested person. Head lice can also spread by carpet and clothing. Over the years public health professionals have realized that one of the main challenges for prevention is infestation between school children.  Teachers and other school employees are told to ensure that children have no direct head-to-head contact with each other. They were given safety health measures to combat the infestation of head lice. However, due to carpeted floors in schools, contact between personal clothing items (from infested person to uninfested person), and active a children, head lice has still been challenging to prevent, (“Head Lice”, 2020).  Currently, public health officials have cracked the whip in making schools update and intensify their head lice policies to ensure that there are lower rates of head lice infestation among students. Although head lice policies aim to lower the rates occurrences, lice spread rather quickly. Also, if it is not treated or caught in time the head lice policies will produce vain attempts to combat the spread. Also, public health officials are encouraging parents to teach children to avoid activities that may spread lice. However, children are always active and sometimes personable with other children. Therefore, this advice may not help reduce the spread.

Infectious Disease

Chlamydia is considered to the most reported sexually transmitted infectious disease in the US, (“How do you prevent chlamydia? | Prevention tips,” n.d.). The CDC reported over 4 million chlamydial infections in 2018.  It is safe to say that the spread of chlamydia is a public health concern.  Untreated and undiagnosed chlamydia can cause reproductive issues for women and pelvic inflammatory disease, (“Chlamydia,” 2019) One major challenge in controlling chlamydia is the amount of Americans that are undiagnosed and untreated. One example of how public health departments are trying to address this is by performing contact tracing. This has helped the spread of chlamydia and has also created opportunities for treatment. The only downside about this strategy for control is the fact that DIS (disease intervention specialists) rely on patients to be completely honest about their sexual partner.  If the patients are not honest, the sex partners may never be diagnosed or treated. Another example of how public health officials are making efforts to control the disease is by providing locations with free testing and treatment. Allowing sexually active individuals the opportunity to get tested for free rather or not they have medical coverage will open the door for disease control.  However, most of the sexually active population have no idea of the health department’s free program and they also lack enough sex education to even get tested after unsafe sex.

Antibiotic Resistance

One antibiotic resistance situation is VRE (Vancomycin-resistant Enterococci).  Vancomycin-resistant Enterococci has caused approximately 54,500 infections among hospitalized patient, (“VRE in healthcare settings | HAI | CDC,” 2019).  This occurs when the Enterococci bacteria does not respond to the vancomycin (antibiotic), which is meant to kill the bacteria. The CDC is working address VRE by surveillance systems to collect records of VRE occurrences. The CDC is also working to address this by researching and devising a plan to prevent VRE, (“VRE in healthcare settings | HAI | CDC,” 2019).